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We went to the Raleigh State Capitol for the "Meet Your State Symbols" event they had on June 17th and it was so much fun. First, I will tell you, parking was great! You park about a block away in the same parking lot you use for the Museum of Natural Sciences and Museum of History. They both were there with a booth as well. We had so much fun and I will tell you, my older two didn't want to go at first. I felt like this would be fun and we'd be learning more about our state. The older two needed a refresher on the symbols and myself and as you can see from the picture above, our youngest had fun too learning about our state symbols.

This was set up so well for families to have fun and learn and to meet the state symbols. We met some honeybees, a box turtle, a pine barren treefrog and a Venus fly trap. We met the real Venus fly trap which is our state carnivorous plant as well as a puppet that our youngest is seen holding in the picture above. They let her hold that and pretend to be the plant eating a bug. She loved it so much! We learned they are only in a small part of North Carolina naturally.

We also learned a lot about the honey bees. I can't seem to find all of my papers from that day, but if someone went to this event and knows which beekeeper came to this event, I want to share their site here. They were great in helping educate us more on the honeybee. We were able to see them through the glass and learn how to spot the worker bees from the drones. We weren't able to see the queen at the time we were there, but she had just gone down into hiding right before we made our way to the honeybee booth. They gave us cute little stuffed animal honeybees for the kids and flower seeds for the honeybees to help do our part to help feed the bees. We were amazed of all the facts we learned about the honeybee! We learned that without the honeybee we couldn't survive as they pollinate 2/3 of our food that is grown! It takes 12 bees their entire lifetime (only 6 weeks) to make one teaspoon of honey. There were more facts, those I still remember though. It was a joy to listen to the excitement they had for educating us on the honey bee.

They also had clogging dances in front of the building that we were able to watch as we sat around the fountain in front and was fun to watch them dance. Clogging is the state folk dance. I also know my father-in-law would love to know this. The state folk art is whirligigs, he loves making these and we went to Vollis Farms to see these earlier this year with three generations of our family and was neat to learn the story behind how it came to be. I didn't see this one at the event, but I didn't get the chance to go to each booth that was there. We were there for about an hour and half before my youngest was ready to go. I think we would have done a free tour of capitol had I only had my two oldest with me. I just know she is the type who needs something she can do with her hands or very engaged type of activity in these types of environments.

We are so very thankful for all who put this event together, we all had fun and enjoyed it so much. I hope they bring this back as an annual event and was fun! We were very excited to attend this event and to meet our state symbols! We love living in North Carolina!

Longleaf Pine FestivalI love writing this as it really helps me to pause and reflect on this event and the opportunity it gave me to spend with my daughter to really enjoy our time together. Not just that day, but for memories to keep forever so I'm thankful for that.

My daughter and I decided to attend the Longleaf Pine Festival this past weekend and it was great! She wanted to go because she already knew about Harris Lake County Park mainly because of how her Dad really loves disc golf and sometimes we go there as a family to play disc golf and then take Anna over to the playground to play when she's done so well walking through the long and beautiful course that goes through the woods. She knew she might find some animals and she also saw you would get to see some animals up close including getting to hold a snake. She told me her favorite thing was getting to hold the snake!

I wanted to go as a homeschool mom, thinking there might be resources for me to find while planning our new homeschool year for some fun and hands-on learning available to us in the area for this year! Well, we both were amazed that this event went above and beyond our expectations and we enjoyed the event so much! Everyone was so friendly and helpful.

We saw the moth above on our walk through the trail from the parking lot to the event, which was a very short walk. It was so much fun. We also learned about various plants on the walk. They also had a scavenger hunt in the natural play area where you can learn about how longleaf pine trees grow. The pinecones pictured above is one of the parts of the scavenger hunt, and these are always there as part of the natural play area. If your children love the outdoors, it's a great place to visit. I will include more pictures below.

They also had live music and a talk but wasn't able to personally get there to hear it, but I'm sure it was great!

I was able to find out about various local resources through Wake County Parks and Recreation which included the Junior Park Naturalist program which is free and a great resource and something fun to do during summer break for kids ages 5-15 with an adult for those under 14. I wasn't aware that I needed to register as well since it was for them but were so nice and flexible to work with me and get me signed up when I got there.​Other fun things they offer can be found here: Public programs

I found various resources through different booths set up at the event. Some of our favorites included:

​We didn't get to make it to every booth, but there were so many with so many reasons to attend this free event for next year. This really was a very well put together event and want to attend again next year! I hope this review is helpful and you enjoyed reading it. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or just want to say Hi!, I love hearing from you.

Save the date for Saturday, May 19, 2018, at Harris Lake County Park! Add it to your calendar so you don't miss out for next year!

A Blog about homeschool life and more

This blog is for you if you like to slow down every once in awhile and reflect and see that all you are doing does matter. To trust the process of learning and growing and to be encouraged.​You may be a homeschool parent, student or just a life long learner.

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